


Solitude

by bluepeony



Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 21:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19070806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluepeony/pseuds/bluepeony
Summary: Sometimes the thought that he’s a little pathetic comes creeping, and he slide tackles it out the way and thinks of Sam, then invariably decides not to think of Sam because it hurts his stomach to do that, and then if he hasn’t fallen asleep yet he usually goes back to thinking of Sam anyway because it’s a pain in his belly but the good kind, the kind that’s dull and aching and anticipatory.





	Solitude

**Author's Note:**

> So I just finished binging The Society, and the end was supposed to coincide with my bedtime, but it didn't, and the abruptness was too much, and I was left sitting there lost because I needed closure on Grizz and Sam and now they expect me to wait to find out if there'll be another season. Anyway so because of that I figured I might as well write something until I get tired. I wanted to write something that was more overtly Sam/Grizz but I was more inspired by the Walden/expedition aspect. I might write something more to do with them as a couple. But for now, here's some lonely Grizz thoughts.

Grizz reads by torchlight. It’s not that it isn’t late. It’s late, it’s three nearly, but they’ve only just settled in for the night and he isn’t too sleepy. He can hear Gwen still rustling about in her sleeping bag in the tent over, trying to get comfortable. Mickey mumbles every night as he nods off. The night is so very uncomfortable out here. It’s cold outside, and inside. It’s cold in the sleeping bags. Grizz wears gloves to bed.

_Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than –_

The page turns black. Grizz upends the torch and gives it a smack. The tent relights.

_Any truth is better than make-believe. Tom Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if he had anything to say._

He loves that Sam gave him _Walden_ , because obviously it’s perfect, but he’s finding it hard to concentrate. It’s not what one might call easy reading, and okay, Grizz loves the way Thoreau just _throws_ out these honey-rich phrases of pure wisdom like yeah, no biggie, have another, how about some Latin now?

But he finds his eyes going over the lines two, sometimes three times, and then carrying on to the end of the paragraph, and then going back to the start of the paragraph when he realises he’s missed the point.

In the old world, Grizz might have given _Walden_ up as a bad job, and just told Sam he’d been into it. Saved it for a vacation or a long car journey.

Then again, in the old world, Sam wouldn’t have given Grizz _Walden_ in the first place.

_However mean your life is, meet and live it; do not shun it and call it –_

The torch gives up again, and Grizz takes it as a sign to stop wasting resources and go to sleep. At least he ends on a note he actually gets. However mean your life is, live it. That’s what they’re doing, isn’t it? Meeting this fucking mean life head on, and deciding to go ahead and live it. Old Grizz would have liked that line. He’d have written it down in a Moleskine journal and used it as inspiration whenever he was toying with the idea of coming out, or applying for a college way out of his league, or… God knows – asking his dad to borrow the car to go to a party.

And now meeting life means sleeping in the middle of a frozen nowhere in December. Meeting life means deciding who’s going to kill and pluck a bird tomorrow.

He dog-ears the page and puts the book and torch to one side and rolls over, pulling the sleeping bag right up under his chin, then poking his hand out the top, putting his other hand over it, intertwining his fingers. He’s been doing it every night they’ve been out here. It helps him get to sleep. Sometimes the thought that he’s a little pathetic comes creeping, and he slide tackles it out the way and thinks of Sam, then invariably decides _not_ to think of Sam because it hurts his stomach to do that, and then if he hasn’t fallen asleep yet he usually goes back to thinking of Sam anyway because it’s a pain in his belly but the good kind, the kind that’s dull and aching and anticipatory.

He rolls on to his back, unclasps his fingers and looks at them. He takes off his gloves. Signs _goodnight_ to himself, then _I’m cold,_ then gives up because he doesn’t know anything else relevant to his current situation, and he’s probably gotten those bits wrong anyway. Should've brought a book on ASL out with him. That would have been more useful than Walden waxing lyrical about how fucking great it is to be in the middle of nowhere.

His old English teacher had introduced him to Ellery Channing and Emerson, and honestly Grizz had fallen for the idea of his New England ancestors living off the land, eating it all up, inhabiting the uninhabited, that big fuck-off transparent eyeball. The idea of self-reliance seemed so romantic; it just somehow doesn’t have the same glamour when he’s being forced to do it.

He picks the book up again and flips its pages in the dark, then holds it to his nose, breathes it in. It smells musty, of old yellowy cream pages; he always loved that smell. First editions and second hand stores. His dad always used to ask him why he seemed to read exclusively _old_ books. _What’s with the history crap, champ? I got some great autobiographies in my office._

And it feels now like – not a waste, but it's just that now he’ll never get the chance to read a book that wasn’t already in West Ham in the first place.

 _I don’t care_ , he signs to himself. Becca showed him that. _I don’t care_. But he cares awfully, and it’s only _books_. It’s only books.

 _Kiss me_ , he signs instead, because it’s pretty and he likes how that one feels.

Outside, it starts to spit on the roof of his tent. He puts his gloves back on. A breeze flutters the nylon walls.

 _I’m cold_ , he signs to himself. _Kiss me. I don't care. Kiss me._

Then he tucks one hand back over the other. Squeezes tight. They've finally settled in the neighbouring tents, hushed, and the when the rain starts to drum down heavier Grizz closes his eyes and sighs and thinks of Sam, with his fingers locking around each other, relaxing themselves, then squeezing, relaxing, like someone's there. He begins to drift, and thinks of home. Thinks of Sam. Thinks of home.


End file.
